Archive for the ‘eNatis (SA)’ Category

The eNaTIS website that was invaded by a hacker on Wednesday contained no vital data whatsoever, the department of transport said on Thursday.

Despite fears of identity fraud, the public eNaTIS website that was cracked by an individual calling himself “Tao” contained no driver registration information – “a deliberate design choice” – for security reasons, said the department.

“Any attempt to hack this website (www.eNaTIS.com) is totally fruitless in respect of the eNaTIS system. The eNaTIS system can only by accessed by work stations that are authorised to access the system and all communication with the eNaTIS system is encrypted.”

That was one of the shock findings by the auditor-general that Minister of Transport Jeff Radebe wanted to keep secret.

Pretoria High Court on Thursday rejected the efforts of Radebe and his department to gag Beeld newspaper, ruling that freedom of the press took precedence over Radebe’s right to keep a report by the A-G secret.

Beeld can now reveal the conclusions of the report, which is the second of three audits compiled by the A-G:

it is possible to hack into eNatis;

one does not need a password to log on as an eNatis administrator;

documents on eNatis are not secured; and

eNatis files can be circulated unprotected without any problem.

The department refused on Thursday to reply to enquiries by Beeld, and would not say if the shortcomings identified on February 21 this year by the A-G and conveyed to Transport Director-General Mpumi Mpofu still existed.

Professor Basie von Solms, head of the University of Johannesburg’s academy for information technology, warned on Thursday that eNatis should be stopped immediately to prevent criminals from hacking into it.

According to him, it could even be illegal to keep a system running with so many shortcomings.

Danger of hackers

He said: “It’s shocking to think that although the department was warned two months earlier about eNatis’s serious shortcomings, it appears they continued to implement the system, regardless of the findings.

“These serious shortcomings could already have led to hackers gaining access to eNatis, to commit sabotage, fraud and conduct all sorts of other unauthorised transactions.

“It’s not just irresponsible, but possibly also criminal to keep operating a system with so many shortcomings,” he said.

According to Solms, such management shortcomings were at odds with international IT practice.

“My first-year students could tell you that the deficiencies that were pointed out were some of the first that you would address, and they should not have been there two months before implementation,” he said.

Von Solms believed that if the security shortcomings still existed, the department should immediately switch off eNatis and sort out these aspects, before it could be used again.

Project manager laughed

“It’s an open invitation for a crime syndicate to crack into eNatis and it is plainly irresponsible if the department allows it to continue to function,” said Von Solms.

Werner Koekemoer, project manager of eNatis, laughed outside court when he was asked if the security shortcomings pointed out by the A-G, had been rectified.

Mpofu answered the question, saying: “As far as I know, yes.”

The department did not want to be specific about steps it may have taken to rectify the problems. news24

Pretoria – The Pretoria High Court has dismissed an application by the director general of transport, Mpumi Mpofu, to prevent the Beeld newspaper from publishing a story on security problems with the eNatis system.

The department of transport was trying to stop Beeld from publishing a story about eNatis because it highlighted “management failures,” the Pretoria High Court heard on Friday.

Arguing on behalf of Media 24, which owns Beeld, advocate Sias Reyneke, SC, told the court that the new computerised transport information system known as eNatis had no security in place.

“It is not because the system is designed that way, it is because it is not managed, it is because there is no governance of the systems,” he said.

He said a section of a report by the auditor-general obtained by Beeld showed there was inadequate password protection and that users had access to sensitive “root files.”

The director-general applied to the Pretoria High Court for an interdict preventing Beeld from publishing facts contained in the auditor-general’s report.

Advocate Pat Ellis, SC, for the department, said it was in the public interest not to have the security problems exposed in detail in the public domain.

“Heaven forbid car theft syndicates use the information to break into the system to cover up their crimes,” he said. news24

Johannesburg – The Department of Transport is bringing an urgent interdict against Beeld newspaper to stop a story about the controversial eNatis system, said the newspaper on Tuesday night.

Beeld investigative reporter Adriaan Basson said the newspaper had got hold of a section of one of the Auditor-General’s reports on the electronic National Transport Information System (eNatis) and on Tuesday morning asked the department to comment on it.

Beeld agreed to give the department until Wednesday to comment, but at about 19:00 on Tuesday Beeld was told that the department had brought the action to stop publication.

“The report is specifically about the security of eNatis,” said Basson.

The matter is due to be heard in the Pretoria High Court on Wednesday afternoon. news24

The system has been dogged by glitches since its launch, leading to massive backlogs in vehicle registrations and long queues of dissatisfied customers at testing centres around the country. Motorists could not register their vehicles or renew their licences.

But on Wednesday Mpofu announced that eNaTIS was not only running smoothly, but was the most “sophisticated” system of its kind in the world.

She assured the committee that the worst was over since the intervention on May 8 to install additional database servers to strengthen the system’s capacity. The system now processes transactions twice as fast as the old one.

It was now operating at an average rate of 619 000 transactions a day, Radebe told the [continue reading]

Johannesburg – Billions of rands have been lost because of the eNatis debacle, which has plunged the automotive industry into chaos, put the brakes on vehicle sales and threatened the future of car rental, trucking and taxi companies, the Sunday Independent reported.

The debacle worsened following a disclosure on Friday that transport minister Jeff Radebe had no knowledge of a report by the office of the auditor-general, issued in December, that warned of e-Natis chaos, overspending and the potential for fraudulent abuse of the system.

The fallout from the failure of the department of transport’s R400 million eNatis licencing system, which has been hit by technical troubles since it was launched last month, has infuriated vehicle owners and motor salesmen and led to demands for a presidential investigation and for the head of Radebe, the Independent said.

Motorists are upset because they cannot take possession of their vehicles from car dealers, car sales people who work on commissions have not been paid, insurance companies are unable to insure vehicles without the paperwork eNatis was designed to generate, and banks will not settle deals until eNatis has printed the vehicle’s registration papers.

The auditor-general’s investigation, made at the request of the department of transport, found serious financial and logistical risks in implementing the system.

The development and implementation of the e-Natis system allegedly went way over budget, resulting in motorists being hit with a R30 fee to make up the shortfall.
news24

Opposition parties on Friday have demanded answers on the troubled eNaTIS traffic system, following allegations the Auditor-General (AG) has warned of problems before the system was introduced.

The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) said it had urgently tabled questions in Parliament to Transport Minister Jeff Radebe, following media reports that revealed that the AG warned the government in December about shortcomings in eNaTIS, said MP Koos van der Merwe, the IFP’s Chief Whip.

“We have been keeping a close eye on the crisis that has unfolded over the past four weeks relating to eNaTIS – South Africa’s upgraded transport information system – that has cost government and the tax payer a staggering R408- million,” said Van der Merwe.

“The IFP is alarmed by reports that minister Radebe had been warned by the auditor-general that the system was doomed for failure. In fact, the auditor-general stated in his final report [continue reading]

Police made 13 000 visits to the eNaTIS system on Monday, the transport department said after claims that it was incompatible with the police stolen vehicle registration system.

Spokesperson Collen Msibi was reacting to a Democratic Alliance statement that the new licence and vehicle registration system, the electronic National Traffic Information System (eNaTIS), remained a disaster.

“eNaTIS is incompatible with the SAPS stolen vehicle registration system and aspects like the re-registration of recovered stolen vehicles are at a standstill,” claimed Gauteng’s DA spokesperson on transport, James Swart, after the party visited a licence centre.

Msibi said this was untrue.

Swart added that although the system was not crashing as much as it did last week, transactions were very slow to process.

“Some single transactions are taking up to 45 minutes,” he said. “Efficiency is down to about a quarter or less of what it was under the old system.”

Johannesburg – Applications for vehicle licences will cost R30 from July 1, said the Ministry of Transport on Wednesday.

The fee was approved by the National Treasury and would help to finance the new electronic national traffic information system, eNatis, said spokesperson Thabo Tsholetsane.

“This fee will be included in the annual renewal notices that are posted to vehicle owners to remind them that their vehicle licences are about to expire, and to provide them with the licence fee payable for the following year.”

Transport Minister Jeff Radebe said on Tuesday the system should be running at almost full capacity by next week.

People who wanted to renew their licences could go to testing centres. Arrangements were being made for centres to operate on extended hours to reduce backlogs.

The introduction of the eNatis system last month has seen slow service at [continue reading]

Motorists issued with traffic fines because the country’s new electronic national traffic information system (eNaTIS) was offline may have them cancelled, Transport Minister Jeff Radebe said on Tuesday.

Radebe apologised unreservedly for the inconvenience the implementation of eNaTIS had caused.

Motorists already issued with traffic fines due to no fault of their own will have their fines reviewed on merit and considered for cancellation by the relevant traffic authorities, Radebe said at a press conference on Pretoria.

Over the past few days a new server with bigger capacity had been installed. This [continue reading]